As you can imagine, there is no absence of people who would love to do this job for you. Get out the phone book and look up financial advisor and you will most likely see pages of people who are waiting for your call.

If you are employed by a company with an employee sponsored retirement plan, your retirement money is most likely managed by a larger investment firm. That money should stay there. It is too important for the do it yourselfer to control and often times, it has to be professionally managed.

For your discretionary investment money, the money you may be using to fund your next vacation, pay for college, or some other long term expense, I'm not advocating taking it to one of those phone book money managers. One consideration may be to get involved in an investment club. This is a group of people who put their money together and divide the research responsibilities. There are also resources available to investment clubs where investment advice is free.

Here's another source. It's a pay service but the money I've made over time (this is not a get rich quick scheme) has made up for the membership fee. For the past couple of years I have subscribed to a Action Alerts Plus. Best selling author and CNBC personality Jim Cramer sends you e-mails throughout the day telling you that he is about to buy or sell a stock in his portfolio. Along with that, he gives you an explanation as to why. Not only do you make money making the same trades, you get an education because he explains all of his moves.

Consider one of these two options. There is no shame in asking for help. Remember that no matter how you make your money, providing it's legal, it all spends the same.

Is your investment portfolio stuck in neutral? click here to try Action Alerts Plus FREE for 14 days. Jim Cramer, best selling author and host of CNBC's Mad Money has been helping the part time investor put their stock portfolio in to overdrive by e-mailing money making stock picks to your e-mail box each day.

We don't recommend anything we haven't tried ourselves. We have been subscribers to Action Alerts Plus for two years and seen our portfolio beat the market ever since!

elementary-finance.com is your source for online financial advice. Check us out today!

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